dismantle the sun
by charliespike18
Summary: He isn't to know, sitting on a yacht sailing up the grand canal that Vesper won't even leave the city alive - that he'll never take her to Skyfall or leave the service. He doesn't know that instead of marrying her in that church on a hot summer's day, M will die there, as the cold invades through the windows, lying on the cold stone floor. He isn't to know. - Set in Skyfall/CasRoy


_The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;_  
 _Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;_  
 _Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood._  
 _For nothing now can ever come to any good._

 _\- Stop All The Clock, W.H Auden_

* * *

He stares at his lamb and then up at her. She's laughing, the noise reverberating around the carriage. She's the money; that's the way she so elegantly introduced herself - nothing more, nothing less. He's sure she's an orphan, just as he is, so maybe - just a little - she'll understand the sense of loneliness that come with being the only one left. He looks back at his lamb.

(He doesn't know that her mother died when she was seven and her father when she was thirteen. In fact, he never knows he was right - M thinks the less he knows about her in the end, the better.)

...

He wonders, as the bullet bites into his skin, standing on a train in Istanbul; if he dies, who will care? Will he be like Vesper and the whole world will just carry on - uncaring? But then again, that's why he was chosen, because his death will impact as little as possible. He is a no one, with no one.

Then he falls and falls and falls. The water is cold on his hot skin. He goes down and doesn't fight back. He's more like her that he thought in that moment; first both orphans and then their like-minded personalities and now, it seems to him, when it comes down to it, the water takes away both of their need to fight. Him in a freezing lake in Istanbul, her in the murky Venetian depths - the water claims both of them as its own.

...

He thinks he's going to die, poison running through his veins lying across the front seat of his car. He just needs to get the damn wire to connect but he can't, he just -

When he comes back round she's staring down at him and in that moment he realises he owes her everything. She saved his life. Maybe, just maybe - that was the moment he fell in love with her.

Or was it later, in the shower as he helped her from falling apart? Or indeed, was it the moment she walked into the casino that very first night? He's not sure he knows, just that from the moment she restarted his heart it only beats because of her.

Or maybe that should be _for_ her.

(He wasn't to know that the moment Vesper saved him she was effectively locking herself in to that life because if he had died lying in his car, she would not have died. There's no other way to look at it, because saving him was admitting she cared - even if neither saw it that way - and caring means she gets attached and she makes mistakes and she ends up in a Venetian canal. But he doesn't know, stumbling back to the card table, that Vesper is a dead woman walking)

...

The tube is murder today, he thinks, as the train crashes through the roof. Quite literally.

Silva's got away and he knows everything's fucked up. He's fucked up and Silva's going to get to M and kill her. He wipes these fears away and keeps going, running and trying to get to M before Raoul does because the last time he let emotion involved he was sitting in a casino in Montenegro.

He is not going to let it happen again. He is better than that. He nearly died, falling from a train, and then he pretended he had - to get away from the service like he dreamt of with her- _but he came back_. There was no one to drag him down, this time. He is James Bond and he has been reborn.

He gets to M just in time; no emotions get in the way.

...

He thinks of marrying Vesper. Of running away to Scotland and standing next to her in that bloody church, living in that house with her. Of being happy, and in love and just being with her.

(He isn't to know, sitting on a yacht sailing up the grand canal that Vesper won't even leave the city alive - that he'll never take her to Skyfall or leave the service. He doesn't know that instead of marrying her in that church on a hot summer's day, M will die there, as the cold invades through the windows, lying on the cold stone floor. He isn't to know)

...

Later, when he's waiting for Silva's men to come, he thinks of how it's come to this; sitting in the house he grew up in, feeling so completely alone. He's clutching his gun, his eyes traitors in their attempt to close. He has to stay awake, stay alert. At the same time he wants sleep to come because he like's dreaming.

In his dreams his mother and father are still alive, he isn't the orphan Vesper so correctly pegged him as, years and years ago now - on that damn train. She's there too, of course she is - _Vesper -_ she's always there. He knows it's okay when he's asleep. Everything's okay when he's dreaming because none of its true - none of it matters.

...

He thinks of how his amour is coming down, lying in the sun after Le Chiffe is shot dead. He's waiting for the Swiss banker to turn up and his chest hurts a little. He thinks about his amour again, the fact it's on the floor now because he wants her. He wants to be happy.

(He can't know that it's all going to end with silent screams in locked lifts and so much water pulling him down and down and down - with truths that can't be unlearned and midnight declarations that he can't forget even though they were half asleep. And that his armour will be put back on, locked so tight that it's never going to come down again, not for anyone.)

...

It's cold in Scotland and someone's walking through the living room below him. He moves, swiftly, wondering if this is it. Is this where he dies, back at the beginning? At home? It turns out it's just M, wandering aimlessly in the quiet dark. The gun is held steady in his hands and M is staring at him like he's crazy.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"Nothing," he replies.

The footsteps on the floor sounded like it did when his father came home -the way he'd imagined it'd sound when he came home to Vesper.

"Just ghosts."

* * *

 **Thoughts?**


End file.
